Skip to content

Random Connections

A collection of photography and exploration focusing on Upstate South Carolina and beyond.

  • Home
  • About Us
  • Photos
  • Resources
  • Other Voices
  • Post Archives
  • Home
  • Entertainment
  • Ground Truthing

Ground Truthing

Posted on April 21, 2008 By Tom No Comments on Ground Truthing
Entertainment

A bit of and update on what I’ve been reading lately – I just got through reading The Traveller by John Twelve Hawks. It’s basically a conspiracy book on steroids set on a slightly different reality, with people carrying Japanese swords to defend a strange class of mystics called Travellers [sic].

It was interesting enough, but as I got closer and closer to the end it became obvious that there was no way this thing was going to be wrapped up in few remaining pages. So now I had a decision to make. The book was OK, but not necessarily good enough to continue across multiple volumes. After all, I had another stack of books waiting to be read. Knowing this, I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to invest any more time in the book. I did finish it, and I enjoyed it, but I’m still wondering about the rest of the series.

Which brings me to what I’m reading now. While in Spartanburg last week I picked up a copy of John Lane’s Circling Home. Lane teaches at Wofford and lives on the west side of Spartanburg on Lawson’s Fork Creek. The premise of the book is that shortly after moving into his current house, he placed a saucer on a topographic map of his neighborhood so that his house was in the center. He then marked a circle around his home on the map, enscribing an area about two miles in diameter. His goal was to learn as much about that circle as possible.

One term that Lane used in his prologue was “Ground Truthing…”

Ground-truthing is verification by direct evidence obtained when you visit a place after having seen it in the abstract on a map or an aerial photograph. It is the truth you can find by interacting with the real world and examining a place and recording the data about it.

This statement really hit home. That’s basically what I’ve been doing on these road trips, both with my brothers and by myself. Granted, my explorations tend to be a bit more superficial. But given how much time I’ve spent on Google Earth lately, it really does sum up what I try to do.

So now I’ve got a great new phrase to use with my Google Earth workshops that start in the morning.

Tags: books

Post navigation

❮ Previous Post: Metaphotography at Artisphere
Next Post: (Google) Earth Day ❯

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Categories

  • EdTech (200)
  • Entertainment (201)
  • Family (120)
  • Gear (115)
  • General Technology (99)
  • Geocaching and Maps (208)
  • History and Genealogy (260)
  • Internet (144)
  • Local (449)
  • Miscellaneous (544)
  • Music (194)
  • Paddling (245)
  • Photography (779)
  • Podcast (6)
  • Rambling (226)
  • Rants (160)
  • Recipes (34)
  • Religion (48)
  • Restaurants (165)
  • Science (48)
  • Things Overheard (29)
  • Travel (410)
  • Uncategorized (129)
  • Washington Sabbatical (113)
  • Weirdness (60)

Recent Posts

  • Wilkinsville and a Mystery Church
  • A Farewell to the Greenville Chorale
  • Edisto River from Good Hope to Sullivan’s Landing
  • Paddling Lake Monticello
  • The Remnants of the City

Recent Comments

  • Darrell Erskine on Mysterious Mayucha and The Wolf Pit
  • Hutch on Exploring Southern Fairfield County – Part 1, Old Lebanon Church
  • Nancy on About Us
  • Steve Rushton on Mysterious Mayucha and The Wolf Pit
  • Tom on Finding Irish Music in South Carolina

Tags

blogging cemetery Christmas Columbia Edisto River edtech Entertainment family Flickr Florida Furman Furman University gear Georgia geotagging Ghost Town Ghost Towns Google Earth Google Maps GPS Greenville Greenville Chorale history Instructional Technology kayaking Lake Jocassee LCU Lowcountry Unfiltered maps Music North Carolina Paddling Photography rambling restaurant Restaurants review singing social networking South Carolina time-lapse Travel video Washington Washington State
July 2022
S M T W T F S
 12
3456789
10111213141516
17181920212223
24252627282930
31  
« May    

Copyright © 2022 Random Connections.

Theme: Oceanly by ScriptsTown